


They watched him fall

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Episodes 68-69, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Thank god for Pike, Vorugal and the Briarwoods are just mentioned, this is shit im so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 08:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14374968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: They watched Grog cut down enemy after enemy with his axe in a wall of carnage as he laughed.They watched Vex fire arrows from the sky like a goddess, hidden in the tree brouths and darkening sky.They watched Vax dodge the bullets fired his way from his friend's own creation and fling his daggers into enemy skin.They watched Keyleth survive attacks and cast spells like she had never been knocked down.They watched Scanlan's grin grow as strong as the spells he was casting as he cleared out the battlefield alone.And Percy...They watched him fall.





	They watched him fall

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry you guys, I really tried to make this good. As soon as I watched the ep I knew I had to write something but guys... I'm sorry. It's not very good. I'm so annoyed haha, this took ages. A lot of the dialogue it from the actual ep (all of it I think??) and I know it's gonna be shitty so maybe just take that into account before you read it xx

They watched him fall.

They watched him fall the first time, watched the necklace break and shatter, watched him get back up. Watched his hands shake so badly his shots missed, watched him growl in silent fury.

The second time, they watched as Ripley shot him with his own creation, watched as he fell to his knees, then face down, watched the burning holes Ripley fired meet their mark, piercing into him, Orthax raking his claws of shadow across his chest. Watched the blood pool around his body like a cape and head like a halo he never asked for.

They watched as his body stopped moving, watched his chest stop rising. Kynan reached for him, turned him over, watched as his eyes stared blankly at the sky. The trickle of blood running along the side of his face and into his hair, dying it red.

Keyleth screamed as Vex flew down on her broom in a fit of fury and fear. Grog roared bloody murder at the spot Ripley once stood, Scanlan with his hands in his hair and silent tears down his face. Vax stood, motionless, in the centre of the crevasse, daggers dangling limply in his fingers, his legs giving out and falling to his knees as he stared at the women he loved most running over, crying next to their friend.

Scanlan moved to grab his sword, Grog yanking the _Chain of Returning_ back a little harder than was necessary, catching his axe in a bone-shattering grip. Keyleth stands, shaking hands covering her face, Vex next to Percy on her knees in the glass, checking his pulse and shaking him. “Can you do anything? As a Paladin?” She cried to her brother, who just shook his head and placed it slowly in his hands.

The _zip!,_ had them turning to where Scanlan and Grog stood. Grog’s axe raised high above his head, froth foaming and falling from his lips. Scanlan’s hand was up, purple energy crackling around his fingers as they watched a purple bubble form around Ripley, encapsulating her in _Otilukes Resilient Sphere_. She looked around, placing her hands up against the sphere. “What? What the heck is going on?”

“You can curse,” Scanlan snarled, walking closer towards her. “It’s ok. You’ve killed one of us.” He turned back to his group, his friends, his family, now minus one. “Everyone gather around her.” He shouted, waving his sword to get everyone’s attention.

Looking up in shock and horror, Vex shook her head. “I’m not leaving Percy.”

“I’m going to drop this thing, and we’re all going to fucking kill her together.”

“No…” Keyleth mumbled, shaking.

Vax finally brought himself to his feet and turned his back to his brother, dead on the ground, and faced the bitch that took his family from him. “Yes, we are.”

Ripley fired at the wall, throwing everything she had at the barrier, to no effect. She slammed her shoulder into it, shouting, raked her fingers across it, nothing. The dark shadow of Orthax rested below her, under the sphere, trying desperately to get to her.

Scanlan slowly walked over to her, sword in hand. Vax started walking as well, Keyleth catching up and reaching down with a shaking hand to place hers in his. Grog readied his axe. “Vex!” Scanlan shouted.

“No, I’m staying. I’m not leaving Percy.”

“But- “

“I’ll shoot her at a distance!”

Grog put his body right against the orb, Keyleth on his side. Scanlan made his way closer, calling out over his shoulder. “Vax, you with us?”

A moment of heart-wrenching silence and Scanlan almost turned back, “Yes.” Quietly, a breath on the wind, but full of fury. Kynan walked over and joined them as well, as far away from Percy as possible, on the other side of the orb, hands folded on his chest, head bowed.

The bard looked around at the rest of his family. “Ready?”  Keyleth’s hands were shaking, but she turned to face Scanlan when he spoke. Her eyes brimming with free-flowing tears.

Grog snarled. “When you are.” His axe was raised high, and his eyes were red with an unbridled fury.

Scanlan met the eyes of his family, met the tearful eyes of Vox Machina and with whatever energy he had left: “For Percy.”

With her hands pushing against the orb, Ripley tried with all her might to get free, but her spells wouldn’t work, her bullets wouldn’t pierce, her sharp words were dull, her screams fell on deaf ears.

“Percy’s killing you right now,” Scanlan told her, meeting her eyes and her awful twisted grin, teeth too sharp and eyes too brave. He would have to take care of that, the determined look that fooled her into believing that they would ever let her leave the island alive after what she’s done. “Not us.”

He dropped the spell, and they all attacked.

They watched her as she fell in a tangled heap of blood and vines and arrows, watched as her now detached arm fall by her head as Vax sliced if from her body, watched her insides spill out from Grogs cut in her navel, watched her neck snap from Keyleth’s _Grasping Vine_ , watched the blood leak down her face from the bleeding de Rolo crest Scanlan had carved into her, a permeant memory of who she had taken from them.

The shadow of Orthax shudders, wavers, then dissipates, leaving the battlefield silent and frightfully empty.

The twins scouted the cave a mile off. Keyleth cleaned Percy's cuts, washed away the blood he seemed to be drowning in and weaved flowers through his hair. Grog collected the guns from the corpses littered around the battlefield, standing on their heads until the skulls crumpled like tin-foil. Scanlan came back with a hard onyx figurine in his hand, Kynan walking shyly behind him, and the gnome looked like he was on the edge of screaming.

The twins returned, both trying to hold back tears, Vax with his arm slung around his sister and her head on his shoulder, just as Scanlan summoned the mansion and they all made their way inside with Percy resting in Grogs arms.

It was Vax who shyly suggested that they have a blanket fort, that they all sleep in together with the others’ breathing and heartbeats loud and strong in the room, comforting each other if one woke up screaming from a nightmare with Percy’s name on their lips.  The servants brought all the blankets and pillows they could find and a long ornate table. They put Percy on the table, and Vex covered him with a blanket, a pillow behind his head, and they could almost pretend he was just sleeping, would wake up once Vax stuck a slimy finger in his ear or Grog poured ale on his face.

Fireflies danced above their heads as they fell asleep, and they stared at them in an effort not to reach a hand out to grab their friend, who was just sleeping if they pretended hard enough.

The walk through the sun tree was fast, but the walk to find Pike was agony.

Percy was slung over Grog’s shoulder, the rest of Vox Machina trailing like an armoured guard around them. Whispers, gasps, crying, screams, muttered prayers, half-hearted laughter, begging Pelor to bring Lord Percival back, and Vox Machina stopped and spoke to none.

Serenrae’s temple seemed so far away.

A guard stopped them, eyes bright and mouth a large cheerful grin that reminded the group too harshly of Ripley’s twisted smirk. “You’ve returned! I- “His eyes drifted to Percy’s limp body hanging off Grog, and the words died in his throat before he could say them. “Oh.”

Vex rubbed her arms and leaned forward. “Someone should get Cassandra.” She said quietly, fighting back the tears.

Pikes face once they reached the temple made Grog bite his lip hard enough to taste blood, for Vax to look away, for Scanlan to say nothing.

“I knew something was wrong.” She whispered, brushing hair out of her face. “Where is he?”

They found Orthax feasting on the tattered and ruined soul of Percy and Keyleth severed the thread. Pike called for Serenrae. Vex begged him to come back to them.

The ceremony was hard, it was long, it was horrible, but with a torrent of crows and Vax’s wings outstretched over Percy’s prone body as though they were his own, Percy took a breath, and the holy light lifted filled the room as he opened his eyes.

He was tired, so very tired, and it had felt like a century since he had seen his friends with a beating heart of his own, but they only said it had been a day? It didn’t feel like a day. His eyes were heavy, his lungs filled with jagged glass, and Percy had the suspicion that if they were to open him up to look, he would be filled head to toe with bullets and black glass.

Even Vax who Percy knew didn’t like him- couldn’t _stand_ him, who Percy cared very much for but hoped that Vax wasn’t foolish enough to care the same for him, was looking down at him with tearful relief with his hand in Percy’s hair and his fingers pulsing with holy light. Percy thought it must have been _bad_.

Cassandra came in soon later and he could almost imagine he had seen her a few days ago and not the years it felt like. 

Using his gun as a crutch, he hobbled his way towards the castle, the imposing white towers blocking out the sun.

They watched him sit quietly while they talked, watched the cogs turn in his head to formulate plans, watched him start to say and stumble. Grog took a step behind him so he would hit the Goliath instead of cold hard ground and Keyleth put her hand on his arm to keep him steady.

Gilmore handed back their items and yawned, stretching his hands above his head. “Is there anything else you want me to look at before I go to bed? Because- it’s late.”

“What time is it, Shawn?” Vax asked calmly, looking at Percy out of the corner of his eye.

Looking up at the sky, Gilmore tilted his head. “Nine?”

“Nine,” Vax repeated quietly, looking at his sister, who nodded. Then louder: “Percival, you should go to bed.”

Percy sighed, pushed his hair out of his face. “Soon. I am not quite ready for sleep, and we have a lot to talk about.” They watched ideas of the up-and-coming battle flit between his quickly darting eyes and watched his lips tighten. “We need to have a discussion. Perhaps in the morning?”

“Yes,” Vex sighed, quietly, walking towards him and placing her hand on his other arm. “We should sleep. You should. You look very tired.” It was meant to be soothing, but she felt- the others watched- him flinch, a fleeting look of fear crossing his face and gone in an instant.

“We can have this conversation tonight; I’m just going to be feeling miserable for a while.” Desperately searching for any reason to not be alone, not to be secluded, isolated in his room with memories and _him_ after being reunited with his family after an eternity, and his eyes searched their faces for any trace of pity, any form of giving in.

Shaking her head, Keyleth looked him in the eyes, and Percy looked away. “I don’t think that’s a wise idea.”

He tried, he really did, and they watched him fight, even though his eyelids were dropping and his head was sinking down to rest on his chest, watched him stumble and lean back on Grog, watched him try desperately to keep all his friends with him. But he needed sleep.

His voice quavered, and he blocked out the rest of the conversation, his head clouding with the never-ending darkness that filled him the last time he slept, those years he spent with his eyes closed and his heart stopped. His eyes opened, the darkness gone, caught the last snippet of the conversation. “It’s true, but Percy needs to get the fuck to sleep, seriously.” Vax placed his hand under his chin, lifted his face, his wings blocking out the sun from hitting Percy’s face.

Vax watched the human's mouth open and close, words stuck in his throat. “I must admit, I… fear sleep at the moment.” Vax rubbed his thumb across his friend’s jaw as he took a shaking breath.  Percy’s eyes met his, tired and fearful.

Blocking out the rest of the others, Vax moved his hands to his shoulders, blood speckled, the fabric tarnished and unravelling, and squeezed. Percy slowly looked at him with eyes almost begging him to understand. “Nobody wants to talk to you right now. We want you to go to sleep. We’re going to go have a drink and a fabulous time. We’ll see you in the morning.”

Stumbling back to his room, Percy mentally kicked himself for not insisting he stay, not forcing himself to go with them to whatever bar they found in Whitestone, not staying in the company of his family after so many centuries of being alone with… _him_.

He fell face first in bed, fully dressed, fully armed, and fell into a dreamless sleep filled with the horrifying darkness and heartbreaking silence that filled with nothing but the familiar dark cackling and his pained screams, could swear that someone was waiting for him in the cold, empty, dark.

His friends came home that night, slightly drunk and tired, tiptoeing by his door as if they would wake him up, Vex sneaking in to replace his note, Vax to check his pulse and his body for holes, Keyleth to brush his hair out of his face and to tell him to get some sleep, they would be there in the morning. Cassandra entered at some point in the night and didn’t leave until many hours later, but they didn’t question it, and found Percy in the morning under the covers, in his favourite pyjamas, his guns where he is most comfortable and his clothes folded neatly or handing up in his closet.

Even the deep angry, red speckled holes in the fabric seemed to be stitched back together.

They kept their eyes on him afterwards, always had him in their sight. Even after the meeting with Rishan, his attempt at pious and calculated words failed him, his voice heavily laced with tiredness and his body giving up on him, using Grog to stand upright.

But they watched him fight, during the battle with the Frigid Doom. His shots went wide often, his aim off and scattering against the icy wall behind. His thoughts were muddled and he wasn’t sure what to do when Yenk climbed up the wall to tear into him, bleeding dark red onto the platform.

Even so, Percy reasoned with the green dragon and bargained, words strong and determined although inside, his tongue was tied into a knot, his stomach a heavy lead weight and his heart a painful stab wound as his clouded mind struggled to form the right things to say.

Back at the castle, he'd fall asleep standing, swaying into Keyleth or Grog only for the Goliath to carry him back to his bed. His mind was always going as fast as his bullets from the barrel of his gun, plans and strategies rolling around like rocks down a mountain, tumbling over each other in a panic to reach the bottom first, his words faster than his lips and his brain even faster still, Scanlan playing a tune on his shawm or his flute until his eyes fluttered closed. Keyleth would gently guide him back to his room with his half-closed eyelids, Vex would whittle arrows while Percy made bullets until his fingers were numb, Vax sat quietly with him, back to back, touching for the first time willingly and openly since the tomb as they cleaned their weapons and whispered about memories, Cass working him to the bone in the study until his hands were covered in charcoal and ink, wax caked under his nails from the wax seals and his hair a mess from where his sister had been running her fingers through it.

Every night, he still dreamt of the millennia he spent with Orthax, the terrible pain as he writhed and screamed in the smoky black grasp with the claws that pierced his skin and poisoned his blood with corruption, spirit tattering like parchment set aflame and the laughter/screaming of the voice that haunted his dreams for years. Sometimes he dreams of the Briarwood's and the begging and screaming of his siblings, his parents, his caretakers, the glint of Sylas’s teeth and the bubbling laughter of Delilah as she hung off of her husband’s arm, purple death swirling around her fingers. Other nights it was Ripley, with her questions and her fingers and her tools, her smile as sharp as the dagger in her hand and her mind as strong as the chains that bind his legs and his arms.

It took a long, long while, but after a time, he stopped waking up screaming, stopped missing as many shots. His gun stopped giving off as much smoke with every fire. He stopped falling asleep on his feet. Vox Machina watched their brother grow stronger again, watched his change, watched him be the brave de Rolo he always was.

They watched him rise.


End file.
